how much battery is enough

[mrchev]

just bought minakota 3 bank charger 30 amps. have a start battery 27 series and a 2 battery switch with another 27 series battery, that was the current set up. look for best house bank set up. should i go with a 4D battery or two 31 series battery's. have room for ether set up. i have fridge,radio,cabin lights,tv, microwave. don't use last two to often and are hooked to a inverter. this is a new set up for boat and need to up grade the house battery's. was told if i run a 4D battery to run two banks off charger to it and the other to the start battery. also have 2 battery switch. if i went to two 31 series battery's do you hook them in parallel and hook one bank from the charger to each battery. not sure on how to hook up that way and still have it run on the 2 way battery switch.and was told to run a isolator to the start battery. we usualy go out in the morning and stay over night an come back the next evening.once in a while we stay for two nights. any info would be great. thanks

 

[Silvertip]

Re: how much battery is enough

You don't need an isolator. It really doesn't matter whether you use one large battery or two smaller batteries to power the house loads. It is all about total battery capacit and price. If you use two group 31's for the house load, connect them in parallel (pos to pos/neg to neg). You can indeed wire each charger output to each battery or combine two outputs on one of the two. The third goes to the starting battery. You wire the starting battery to the BAT 1 position on the switch and the house battery to BAT 2. Combine all three of the battery NEG terminals.

As with most dual battery switch installations, for maximum flexibility, ALL loads should be connected to the COM terminal on the switch.

 

[mrchev]

Re: how much battery is enough

thanks for the info.